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Enfys posted:Previously: I have been enjoying this challenge so much this year, and it has really gotten me into the reading habit again. I have been enjoying reading different and random books so much that I realised there's now only one month to go, and I sort of lost track of the challenge particulars a bit. I've managed to complete my vanilla number, which I thought would be a huge stretch for me, but I need to get the last booklord challenges done this month! This is my October/November update: 32. Snow - Orhan Pamuk I really expected to like this given the critical acclaim and how much people gushed about it. I started off liking it, but it took me a month to slog through it because it wandered off into bizarre and difficult to follow narrative. Before I reached the halfway point of the book, I just wanted to be done with it, and it just dragged more and more. I don't think I really understood the second half of the book at all. It ended up reading like some kind of fever dream. I wanted to read it as I know little about Turkey, and someone mentioned it being very topical. The suicide epidemic ends up having very little to do with the story and is hardly mentioned after the beginning, so I'm not sure why it features so strongly in the description. A lot of it felt very heavy handed and overdone. The author self-inserts himself as the narrator, which just ends up being rather cringe-worthy as he describes the honours people give him because of who he is, name drops his other works, etc. A lot of the book focuses on a diagram of a snowflake and how the different axes represent and reflect an individual's life. Really weird book that I didn't understand and am happy to have finally finished. 33. Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke One day aliens come to Earth and enforce peace, prosperity and amazing new technology from afar. Earth quickly becomes a sort of utopia, but why? This was one of those novels where you think you're reading one book and then suddenly end up reading a completely different, vaguely related book. I really enjoyed the first 2/3 or so of the book, but I found the last part really weird, jarring, and ultimately boring. This was an interesting exercise in imagination but overall not a very cohesive story. I thought it was funny how a small segment of the population was concerned that in the new golden age utopia, people were spending on average 3 hours a day consuming entertainment media. 34. The Round House - Louise Edrich A Native American woman is brutally raped, and her son and husband try to seek justice despite a legal mess surrounding US-Native American legislation and jurisdiction. Overall a really bleak book but also very powerful. There's a lot I never really understood about Native American status and laws in the US and the unique problems they face. The author is a Native American and wrote an afterword about how sexual assault of Native women is shockingly common and rarely ever prosecuted due to these legal and social issues. 35. Go Tell It on the Mountain - James Baldwin Semi-autobiographical novel about a black minister's son in New York trying to find his identity and come to terms with his very complicated family. Really beautifully written - he has such a lyrical, stunning writing style. Despite the exceptional writing, I sometimes grew a little bored of the actual story in the face of the characters' relentless exploration and justification of their faith, which I think is my own failing rather than the book's. 36. Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World - Mark Miodownik A materials scientist discusses the science behind materials in everyday objects like the steel in his razor, the graphite in his pencil, the foam in his sneakers, the concrete in a nearby skyscraper, chocolate, etc. The actual science parts of the book were fascinating and still something I think about regularly. One of the books that helps me look at the world around me in a new way and has provided me with lots of random conversation material. However, it suffers from having extensive personal "fluff" forced in which distracts from the cool science rather than enhancing it. It seems to be a formula pop-sci authors are told they need to follow - mix the interesting science with random anecdotes from their personal life. I guess the idea is to water down the science in case it scares people off and to add "human interest"...which is fine in theory and can be done well, but often it's just really annoying and tedious. I read it for the cool science stuff, not random everyday stories about some guy's normal life. 37. Starman (Axis Trilogy #3) - Sara Douglass The conclusion of a fantasy series I wanted to reread out of nostalgia for my younger self. Even given how my tastes have changed over time, I now understand why I quit reading her books after this one and never continued with this series. The first book is a decent if very cliche fantasy novel. The second abandons a lot of the plot for some kind of weird melodramatic and annoying love triangle thing. This one is the ultimate Mary Sue lovefest - the common girl from a small town turns into the most super special amazing person ever who has all the super special powers she could ever want and more who can solve all the problems of the previous books in a few minutes. Incredibly anticlimactic. Two giant fantasy tomes of build up, and she literally solves everything in a page or so, mostly by being too sexy to resist. Everyone is in love with her, everyone wants to be with her or be her, etc. Also, I'm amazed how anyone in this book ever gets anything done since they are always "catching their breath" at the beauty of all the incredibly beautiful people and staring at them every chance they get. I get the impression the author had a cool story but then fell apart and was really using these books to compensate for crippling self esteem problems. 38. Right Ho, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse BOTM and my first introduction to Wodehouse. I absolutely loved it and see why his books are so beloved. I laughed throughout the entire thing. 39. Wool - Hugh Howey Post-apocalypse novel about humanity living underground in a massive Silo. This started off really interesting but then seemed to get a bit lost. Sometimes the plot would again stumble into really interesting territory, but it was too bogged down to stick it out. It really strains credulity to the breaking point at times though (and the author has no idea how diving or pressure under water works). I ended up feeling a little disappointed because I wanted to love it. Will probably read the others to see if his writing improves as the world is pretty interesting. 40. The Girl with all the Gifts - M. R. Carey Absolutely loved this, which is funny since it's one I didn't expect to love (while the previous books I expected to love were all disappointing). A really enthralling story. It manages to show an apocalyptic world with its realities without grinding your face into bleak misery or false hope. A very unusual ending for this genre, and at first I was a little disappointed. The more I sit with it, the more I appreciate it though. That finished my vanilla number of 40, which delights me as the last couple years I have read maybe 5-10 books total, and I thought this would be a huge stretch for me. I've spent most of the year pushing myself to read new things, but I was on holiday for a chunk of November and ended up getting a big lazy with my reading and going on a fantasy binge. Then I realised I still have 4 or so challenges to complete in December - working on them now!
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Dec 2, 2016 21:10
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Booklog Challenge Update posted:Count: 92/96 books, 9 nonfiction (8%), 5 rereads (5%) 93. The Firm by John Grisham This was good, but it was also pretty stressful, because it does that thing where it constantly cuts away to the antagonists and shows them closing in. I have to be in a certain mood to enjoy this sort of book, I think. Also, wow, Grisham really doesn't try at all to make his antagonists even slightly sympathetic. 94. Wave Without a Shore by C.J. Cherryh Continuing to fill in the gaps in my Cherryh. This one I feel I would have gotten a lot more out of had I any sort of formal education in philosophy, and it ends quite abruptly. 95. So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane (reread) I needed some comfort reading and this is an old favourite that still holds up today. It's a warm, comforting book, which seems odd to say given that most of it takes place in a twisted hellscape of alternate NY and all the supporting characters die, but it really is in a way that The Book of Night with Moon isn't. 96. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde This was funny, but I think I would have gotten more out of it with more knowledge of the social conventions of the time that it mocks. (While not formally banned, this is the play that led to Wilde being outed as gay and his subsequent exile and the end of his career as a writer; I think that counts.) 97. Agent of Change by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller 98. Conflict of Honours by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller The first two Liaden Universe books. The first one was merely alright, but was also a fast read, so I decided to keep going and check out the second one, which I enjoyed a great deal more. Definitely going to keep checking these out when I want some light "potato chip" space opera. 99. A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers  The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet was one of my favourites of the year, and Orbit lives up to my expectations as a sequel. Absolutely delightful. One might argue (just as with Angry Planet) that not a great deal happens during the book, but like its predecessor it's not a book about laserspewpew, it's about settling down over tea and getting to know the characters.I do miss the ensemble cast of the Wayfarer's crew, though. I think this is probably a better book than Angry Planet, but one that I'm less likely to reread. 100. Stiletto by Daniel O'Malley This was a blast. An improvement on The Rook, I think, although I miss Mwyfany's letters -- it has a lot less exposition, but when it does happen it's more jarring, because it's the narrator expositing at you with no in-setting justification. (And half of it is poo poo I Already Know, since I read The Rook -- can the author not safely assume that if the reader is reading book #2 they probably read book #1 first?). On the plus side we get to see more angles of the Chequy and learn a lot about the Grafters, too. More humour in this one, too, I think -- or perhaps The Rook was funnier than I remember. I spent the first half of the book being pretty unhappy that Grootvader Ernst refused to tell the Chequy about the Antagonists, but I can see why they did it now. I felt pretty proud of myself for figuring out that "Pawn Sophie" was actually an enemy agent and that melting blonde dude was part of the Gestalt, but this is somewhat tempered by not figuring out what Odette's new throat implants were for (ok, that one wasn't exactly heavily clued) or the true nature of the Antagonists -- that latter one is really embarassing considering how many clues there were pointing in that direction, in retrospect. 101. Star Trek by James Blish 102. Star Trek 2 by James Blish 103. Star Trek 3 by James Blish My parents had some of these growing up (numbers 8-12, I think). Like all the other SF on their shelves, I read them all as a kid, but it wasn't until relatively recently that I learned they were adaptations of the actual episodes (not having seen any TOS, and precious little Trek in general). I recently had cause to help a friend track them down (she's a big Trek fan but had no idea the Blish adaptations existed) and took the opportunity to read some of them before handing them over. To be honest, I didn't enjoy them as much now as I did when I was younger. They're showing their age, and since these are some of the volumes I didn't read as a kid, they don't come with that nice hit of nostalgia. 104. (name TBD) by Bard Bloom My first experience as a beta reader! This is ostensibly the fourth Mating Flight book, but it's set (mostly) before Mating Flight and has no characters in common (a few cameos notwithstanding). It has a similar "voice" to Mating Flight, but unlike MF is straightforwardly narrated rather than being presented as the contents of the protagonist's journal, which makes its distilled recitation of events feel somewhat unusual; it's not bad but it's a style that I gather was much more common in the 50s than it is today, at least for non-epistolary novels. It's rougher around the edges than the first two books were, but this is hardly surprising since Mating Flight had seen years of editing and polishing before publication by the time I read it. I quite enjoyed it nonetheless, although I don't think I will like it as much as Mating Flight even once it's finished. 105. The Palace Job by Patrick Weekes 106. The Prophecy Con by Patrick Weekes 107. The Paladin Caper by Patrick Weekes The Rogues of the Republic trilogy. It starts off as a straightforward heist, with the protagonist escaping from prison and assembling an ensemble cast of thieves and conmen to steal her inheritance back from the noble who double-crossed and imprisoned her in the first place. Then things escalate a lot. If I have one complaint about it, it's that when the chips are down it relies a bit too heavily on Loch's admittedly impressive dirty fighting skills, but there's enough trickery and clever strategems going on to keep me interested. Next up is rounding out my nonfiction a bit with \i{Wild Swans} and the new e-reader-friendly build of \i{Ignition!}, and after that...I'm not sure what. Probably \i{A Farewell to Arms} for the "Lost Generation" challenge, but apart from that, who knows? ToxicFrog fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Dec 2, 2016 |
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Dec 2, 2016 22:33
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Ben Nevis posted:1. My Dead Body by Charlie Huston. November was a good month for books, on the whole. I also knocked out my wildcard, banned books, and Lost Generation. For the banned books challenge, I pulled up a list of the most often challenged and banned books on Wiki and grabbed 2 with interesting titles. Most were YA and thus fairly quick, which is why I grabbed two. Both of mine turned out to be early 70s, so no sparkling vampires here. 75. Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee - In space, the dominant hegemony maintains power through the rigid enforcement of it's calendar. When a major space fortress switches to to another calendar, a force captained by a jumped up infantry commander who is possessed by the psychic fragments of a brilliant but crazy general is sent to recover it. Yeah, I have no idea how the calendar thing works. This really just sort of throws you into the middle of it and expects you to go along. That being said, if you make it past the initial confusion, this is a fun read with spacefightin'. Would recommend. 76. The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson - Vellitt Boe is a professor at the Ulthar Women's college and one of her students has eloped to the waking world with a dreamer. Boe sets out to try and get her back, braving the dangers of the dream world to do so. Johnson says in her afterword that this is sort of her way of finding a role for women in Lovecraft's mythos. It's sort of a tour of the Dreamlands told from a rather different perspective. There are definitely tie ins to several Lovecraft works, but they probably aren't required reading. I liked this. 77. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier - A challenged/banned book, and I thought I had heard of or perhaps read this, but I think I was confusing it for The Pushcart War. Jerry goes to a boys school that's ruled in equal parts by the administration and by a secret society of boys. When the big fundraising drive comes around, he won't sell chocolate. Naturally this irks the administration, even more so when Jerry is viewed as a hero. Things change when the secret society gets in on the chocolate selling as well. I'm not honestly sure why this was frequently challenged or banned. There's a particularly brutal part as well as some mild language and a mention or two of jacking off. I like to think that it's challenged/banned because it shows an individual crushed by existing power structures, and while perhaps accurate, we don't want to destroy children's spirits so young. 78. The Atrocity Exhibition by JG Ballard - My Wild Card, and man was it wild. For the most part, this book is a collection of "chapters" that dwell on a particular theme. Each chapter is divided into sort of long paragraphs that serve as an outline or perhaps part of a story connected to the overall theme. The broad, overarching idea here seems to focus on the marketing and sexualization of atrocity and also the recognition of America's car culture as an atrocity. Naturally, this is all intimately tied in with the Kennedy assassination, which so well encompassed cars, atrocity, pop culture, and sex. Be prepared to read phrases like "the mouth-parts of Jackie Kennedy" and "the pundenda of Ralph Nader" over and over. Also the sexualization of architecture and linear objects. I felt things got a little repetitive with the first stories. There's a break after the first ten into a slightly different style that I liked better. The appendix of 4 stories in the newer publishing is initially interesting with his points about the voyeuristic tendencies of science, but I didn't need 3 stories to make it. The Secret History of World War 3 felt particularly apt though. 79. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck - Another banned book that was not primarily about the celebration of the life of pigs. It's a coming of age story set on a poor farm in Vermont. This story was chock full wit and humor, some parts were laugh out loud funny. Ultimately thought it's a story about a boy coming to know his father, and man it just got me. The mix of humor seguing into poignancy was overwhelming towards the end. Some of the shine is taken off this by the fact that basically everything written about Shakers in the book is nonsense. Apparently banned for a few frank depictions of life on a farm. Despite that, I found this to be an outstanding book. 80. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers - Join the crew of a wormhole construction ship as they travel for a year to their highest paying job yet. This is told episodically with each chapter being an event along the way that helps reveal the relationships on the ship and the characters of its crew. I really enjoyed this, lots of space travelling, aliens, and whatnot, but it winds up feeling somewhat cozy nonetheless. 81. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway - I had purchased this for $1 from a used book store some time ago, apparently never realizing it was used by a student who had waggishly crossed out Arms on the cover and written in Sex. That combined with some confusion caused by the fact that while reading this I also watched the episode of Cheers with the Sun Also Rises misled me into thinking this was the book where a guy gets his balls shot off. I spent way too long wondering how that happens in a Swiss resort town. 1) Vanilla Number 74/45 2) Something written by a woman - 5, 7, 18, 17, 16, 21, 23, 26, 31, 32, 34, 35, 41, 42, 47, 52, 56, 64, 72, 76, 80 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author - 5, 16, 19, 22, 24, 31, 33, 39, 45, 48, 56, 62, 64, 65, 72 4) Something written in the 1800s - 14 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction your choice)- 21, 31 6) A book about or narrated by an animal - 7, 12, 71 7) A collection of essays. 8) A work of Science Fiction - 6, 16, 19, 52, 54, 64, 69, 72, 73, 75, 80 9) Something written by a musician - 74 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages - 2, 16, 69 11) Read something about or set in NYC - 1, 33, 34, 51 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) - 68 13) Read Something YA - 30, 77, 79 14) Wildcard! - 79 15) Something recently published - 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23,24,25, 29, 35, 39, 45, 52, 57, 58, 59, 60, 63, 64, 65, 68, 69, 70, 72, 73, 75, 76, 80 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now - 2, 6, 30, 74 17) The First book in a series - 13, 17, 18, 21, 25, 38, 49, 75 18) A biography or autobiography - 28, 74 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Generation - 81 20) Read a banned book - 77, 79 21) A Short Story collection - 7, 11, 34, 41 22) It’s a Mystery - 15, 17, 24, 43, 48, 65, 73
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Dec 2, 2016 22:44
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Mr. Squishy posted:1 The Ministery of Fear by Graham Greene. Another thriller where the most interesting thing is the setting, this time London under the blitz. I considered including him as part of the lost generation (born 5 years after Hemmingway) but gently caress it. 70 The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy. I've bounced off this text a few times before, totally my fault. I guess I need to re-read this, I did like the violence of emotions and all that. 71 The Limeworks by Thomas Bernahard as translated by Sophie Wilkins. One of the big Bernhards I avoided in my unsystematic approach. He remains fantastic though I'm not sure if Wilkin's translation stands up. What do I know though, it didn't contain any howlers.. I'm counting him as a musician by the way, and nobody can stop me. 9 72 Dope Girls by Marek Kohnn. Brief history of the start of drug prohibition as told through a case-history of a series of women, almost all of whom end up dying from an ovrerdose. Most of the work is kicking apart the sensational and ignorant reporting of the time, which might count as fish in a barrel. For example some pulpy popular policeman falsely claimed to have seen a dealer crossing the street when he'd been in prison for years. Still, entertaining enough. 73 The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Carey. Mad old painter likes Blake and Spinoza, never has enough readies available to finish any paintings. An enjoyable farce but not the best thing I've read about mad painters. 74 The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad. Just up close, plotless discussions of how tall ships were sailed. I picked up a copy of Melville's White Jacket which is the same thing, coincidentally. Anyway, love that Conrad. 75 Don Carmusso by Machado de Assis as translated by John Gledson. I was really excited when I picked up this book and flipped through a page or something of sparkling prose but when I got to the end of it I realized I'd actually read some of this guy before, Epitaph of a Small Winner. I loved him then too! If more of this guy falls into my hands, I wouldn't hate it!. Honestly I'm pretty close to just putting down any of these as being "about an animal", I'm sure at least one of these had been banned at some point by somebody. I just need a recent book. Anyone know a recent book that's worthwhile? 75/60 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22
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Dec 2, 2016 23:43
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Rusty posted:November books Are you using the Michelin star system? because that is a top spot book. Here are some more books that I read: Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov. real good Silence by Shusaku Endo. pretty good. Scorcese is making a movie Stories by Kafka. real good Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. real good A Webisode in the Life of a Landscape Painter by Cesar Aira. pretty good Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. bad
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Dec 3, 2016 04:15
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david crosby posted:Are you using the Michelin star system? because that is a top spot book.
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Dec 3, 2016 04:52
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Bandiet posted:1. The Stranger by Albert Camus 36. The Sorrows Of Young Werther, by Goethe. I revisited this in preparation for Thomas Mann's Lotte In Weimar. It's easy to forget Werther only seems like a caricature because of the character's very real cultural influence. 37. The Book Of Songs, translated by Arthur Waley. Recc'd by my good friend Ezra Pound. The political poetry is about as insanely boring as you would expect. The ones that deal with more individual rituals of ancient Chinese life - family, marriage, work - are often beautiful and startling. 38. Selected Poems, by Ezra Pound. Here's a good followup to the above, so you can see how really simple the goals of his Imagist poems were. I've read some of the Cantos before, tried to read some of the other Cantos. Other than that I've been blind to Pound's poetry. Gooooood poo poo. Just please, skip the "translations." 39. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. Trash Vanilla Number: 39/75 Something Written by a nonwhite author: Book Of Songs A work of Science Fiction: Frankenstein I need a wildcard for this last month.
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Dec 3, 2016 08:09
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November - 10: 71. Wind Pinball (Haruki Murakami) 72. The Three Emperors (Miranda Carter) 73. How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone (Sasa Stanisic) 74. Hokkaido Highway Blues (Will Ferguson) 75. Love in Small Letters (Francesc Miralles) 76. The Penelopiad (Margaret Atwood) 77. Aneurin Bevan: A Biography - Volume 1: 1897-1945 (Michael Foot) 78. Crash (JG Ballard) 79. The Atrocity Exhibition (JG Ballard) 80. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (Natasha Pulley) Wind Pinball is the combined English release of Murakami's first two novels, Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball 1973. They're weird to read now, not being in his familiar style and quite short. I'm not sure I exactly liked them, but it was interesting to read them. The Three Emperors is the story of the three major emperors of the First World War - George V, Nicholas II and Wilhelm II. It explores their relationships to each other, their approach to running their respective countries, and the parts they played in the lead up to the war. Since they're all related quite closely via Victoria, things were pretty twisted. It's an interesting period of history and Carter handles it excellently, although in places it's repetitive - which is the fault of history not always playing to a narrative. How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone is a semi-autobiographical novel about the break-up of Yugoslavia, told from the perspective of a mixed-ethnicity Bosnian child (initially) called Aleksandar. It's funny and touching and horrifying all at the same time, and takes a light touch to the events which just makes them worse. Hokkaido Highway Blues is travel writer Will Ferguson hitchhiking his way from the far southwest of Kyushu in Japan to the far northeast of Hokkaido. It's a funny and lighthearted look at Japan, and thankfully Ferguson a) likes Japan but b) isn't a weeaboo. It's hilarious how often the people who pick him up tell him "Japanese people never pick up hitchhikers!", while they pick up a hitchhiker. I learnt a lot and also had a good time reading it which is solid travel writing imo. Love in Small Letters was a self-help book disguised, badly, as a novel. It wasn't quite as egregious as The Alchemist, but it was pretty close. It also includes a main character who literally thinks about his love interest, who barely knows him, as a "reward" for his (very shallow) journey. If someone had told me 2/3rds of the way in that there was going to be a twist where he turns out to be a psycho and ends up killing her and wearing her skin, I'd have believed them. Sadly it didn't go that way and instead it bumbled along spouting bad cod philosophy and at the end everything worked out for our main man, because he's just that good a person. The Penelopiad is a retelling of the Odyssey from Penelope's perspective. It's typical Atwood - biting, pacy, colourful. I liked it but it's maybe a little bit lightweight. Crash and The Atrocity Exhibition have a lot in common (the antagonist in Crash shows up in TAE). They're both explorations of mass consumer culture, typified by cars and mass advertising. There's a lot of repetition of phrases and themes to drive it home, and both benefit from keeping it short. Both obsess over celebrity - Elizabeth Taylor plays a central part in Crash and TAE (as the goon above indicated who I wildcarded this - sorry!) focuses around JFK and Reagan among others. One amusing sidenote was Ralph Nader, who's mentioned several times. At time of writing he was best known as a safety campaigner, and in my annotated copy Ballard notes that he's probably the figure who's had least impact since and has probably been forgotten. Little did JG know how the 2000 Presidential election would play out. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street was fantastic for 280 pages and then totally hosed it in the last 40. The book centres around Thaniel Steepleton, a Home Office telegraphist with a boring life, and his relationship with Keira Mori, a Japanese from a samurai family who moved to England and is working as a watchmaker. Mori has a certain amount of clairvoyance, which forms the central thrust of the plot. The first half is slow paced but interesting, the next quarter starts to go off the rails, and the ending fails in just about every way. I guess I'd describe it as "interesting but flawed." Year to Date - 80: Booklord: 1-13, 15-22 01. Death and the Penguin (Andrey Kurkov) 6 02. Kitchen (Banana Yoshimoto) 2 03. Sky Burial (Xinran) 3 04. The Shining (Stephen King) 16 05. Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana (Michael Azerrad) 18 06. A Case of Exploding Mangoes (Mohammed Hanif) 12 07. A Visit from the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan) 11 08. King of the World (David Remnick) 09. Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami) 10. Ubik (Philip K. Dick) 8 11. The Vegetarian (Han Kang) 15 12. Waiting for the Barbarians (J.M. Coetzee) 13. John Crow's Devil (Marlon James) 14. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy) 4 15. The Dream Life of Sukhanov (Olga Grushin) 16. Farewell, Cowboy (Olja Savicevic) 17. A History of Sparta 950-192BC (W.G. Forrest) 5 18. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini) 19. The Guest Cat (Takashi Hiraida) 20. The Book of Memory (Petina Gappah) 21. The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway) 19 22. Fury (Salman Rushdie) 23. Ninja (John Man) 24. Concrete Island (JG Ballard) 25. A God in Ruins (Kate Atkinson) 10 26. Dead Souls (Nikolai Gogol) 27. Perdido Street Station (China Mieville) 17 28. A Little Life (Hanya Yanagihara) 29. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) 30. The Mark and the Void (Paul Murray) 31. The Iliad (Homer) 32. Girls of Riyadh (Rajaa Alsanea) 20 33. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (Yukio Mishima) 34. Steampunk! (Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant) 13 35. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce) 36. The Chimes (Anna Smaill) 9 37. The Art of Joy (Goliarda Sapienza) 38. Fever Pitch (Nick Hornby) 39. Fateless (Imre Kertesz) 40. Britannia: A History of Roman Britain (Sheppard Frere) 41. Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (Haruki Murakami) 22 42. Candide, or Optimism (Voltaire) 43. Dubliners (James Joyce) 21 44. The Fall of the Stone City (Ismail Kadare) 45. Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (Alan Bullock) 46. The Sympathizer (Viet Thanh Nguyen) 47. Guards! Guards! (Terry Pratchett) 48. The Gum Thief (Douglas Coupland) 49. Eric (Terry Pratchett) 50. Beauty is a Wound (Eka Kurniawan) 51. A Wild Sheep Chase (Haruki Murakami) 52. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Aleskandr Solzhenitsyn) 53. Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe (Norman Davies) 7 54. Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error (Kathryn Schulz) 55. Sword Song (Bernard Cornwell) 56. Inez (Carlos Fuentes) 57. Two Years, Eight Months, and Twenty Eight Nights (Salman Rushdie) 58. The Burning Land (Bernard Cornwell) 59. Death of Kings (Bernard Cornwell) 60. Life After Life (Kate Atkinson) 61. Blindness (Jose Saramago) 62. A General Theory of Oblivion (José Eduardo Agualusa) 63. From the Mouth of the Whale (Sjón) 64. The Rabbit Back Literature Society (Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen) 65. VALIS (Philip K. Dick) 66. High-Rise (JG Ballard) 67. The Heart Goes Last (Margaret Atwood) 68. The Hungry Ghosts (Shyam Selvadurai) 69. The Dream of the Celt (Mario Vargas Llosa) 70. Ficciones (Jorge Luis Borges) 71. Wind Pinball (Haruki Murakami) 72. The Three Emperors (Miranda Carter) 73. How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone (Sasa Stanisic) 74. Hokkaido Highway Blues (Will Ferguson) 75. Love in Small Letters (Francesc Miralles) 76. The Penelopiad (Margaret Atwood) 77. Aneurin Bevan: A Biography - Volume 1: 1897-1945 (Michael Foot) 78. Crash (JG Ballard) 79. The Atrocity Exhibition (JG Ballard) 80. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (Natasha Pulley)
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Dec 3, 2016 19:50
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November 54. The Light Between Oceans. M.L. Stedman. One dull book. The descriptions and the story were just fine, but the characters and the endless parade of side stories is boring and depressing. 55. Jaws. Peter Benchley. Too many plot-lines, not enough adventure or shark. I'm glad the movie trimmed some stuff. 56. Sandkings. George R. R. Martin. Amazing little story, quite fun and engaging. A show of what's to come for the author. 57. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick. One of those books you have to reread once in a while. Still as good as the first time. 58. Numero Cero. Umberto Eco. Too many weird Italian references I didn't understand, that wouldn't be a problem if those weren't the core of the novel... 59. The Sun Also Rises. Ernest Hemingway. Kind of boring, kind of decadent, just like the Lost Generation. Regular... Booklord challenge 1) Vanilla Number 59/60 9) Something written by a musician 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) 14) Wildcard! Ragnarok by AS Byatt. 15) Something recently published Still four to go, good enough for the last month.
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Dec 3, 2016 20:11
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Prolonged Shame posted:1) The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion - Fannie Flagg 95) The Boston Girl - Anita Diamant: The story of the daughter of Jewish immigrants growing up in early 20th century Boston. I really liked it and it was very well written, but there was no real conflict or plot beyond 'I did this, then I did this, then this person died, etc etc". Still, quite good. 96) Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA and More Tell Us About Crime - Val McDermid: Each chapter focuses on a different crime scene discipline (fingerprints, entymology, etc) and how it came about, evolved, notable cases it was used in, and how it is used today. Very interesting and written for the layman. 97) City of Stairs - Robert Jackson Bennett: This was ok. I liked the worldbuilding, and the characters were well made, but it wasn't gripping enough for me to want to continue the series. Ok as a standalone though. 98) Girl in Hyacinth Blue - Susan Vreeland: I loved this. It is a series of short stories, sort of, each about the owner of a fictional possible-Vermeer painting. It tells of how they acquired the painting and why they had to get rid of it, going back in time from owner to owner until we hear the stories of the painter and subject of the painting. It's a quick read and well worth it. 99) Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke: I really wanted to like this, but it read like she was paid by the word, and when the plot doesn't really get going until page 700 of an 800 page book, I just couldn't. 100) The Emerald Storm (Ethan Gage #5) - William Dietrich: This was marginally better than the rest of the books in the series. Probably because none of the female characters was unable to resist loving Our Hero. Overall: Total: 100/100 A-Z Challenge: 26/26 Booklord Challenge: 22/22 Presidential Biographies: 6/6 Done with my goal with a month to go!
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Dec 4, 2016 15:07
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Far too late October/November update... 1. Exoskeleton by Shane Stadler 2. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien 3. The Serpent by Claire North 4. Dear Mr Kershaw: A Pensioner Writes by Derek Philpott 5. Bossypants by Tina Fey 6. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski 7. The Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman 8. The Raven Boys (Raven Cycle #1) by Maggie Steifvater 9. The Dream Thieves (Raven Cycle #2) by Maggie Steifvater 10. Blue Lily, Lily Blue (Raven Cycle #3) by Maggie Steifvater 11. Modern Romance by Aziz Anzari 12. Legend by Marie Lu 13. Sabriel by Garth Nix 14. Three men on a boat by Jerome K Jerome 15. Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche 16. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel 17. Touched by an Angel by Jonathan Morris 18. River of Ink by Paul M M Cooper 19. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling 20. Mr Mercedes by Steven King 21. I Remember You by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir 22. Unwanted by Kristina Ohlsson 23. Close Encounters of the Furred Kind by Tom Cox 24. I Am a Cat by Natsume Soseki 25. The Girl You Lost by Kathryn Croft 26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling 27. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling 28. The Infinite Wait and Other Stories by Julia Wertz 29. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann 30. Spectacles by Sue Perkins 31. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison 32. Career of Evil by Robert Galbreith 33. The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly 34. The Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross 35. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling 36. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry 37. The Apocolypse Files by Charles Stross 38. The World Walker by Ian W. Sainsbury 39/40. Rat Queens Vol 2 & 3 by Kurtis J Weibe 41: Esio Trot by Roald Dahl 42: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire 43. Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind by Yuval Noah Harari 44. Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran 45, 46 & 47: Harry Potter and the OotP/HBP/DH by JK Rowling. Finished the series off while on holiday, I always enjoy re-reading these and once it gets past the main teenage angst things improve considerably. I wish JK was a slightly better writer though. 48. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Well I am a giant nerd so it had to happen at some point. I actually listened to the audiobook and enjoyed Wil Wheaton's narration, and the plot did keep me interested. Jeepers I wish it was easier to skip ahead in audiobooks though, there is just so much time wasted by pointless, overlong descriptions of anything even vaguely geek related that added nothing to the plot or characters. It almost stopped me 49. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr I loved this - I'm not usually one for historical fiction, but this was a beautiful if occasionally horrifying book. Quite different, seeing the world from the perspective of a blind girl and a Nazi and how their lives eventually weave together. 50. Kingpin by Kevin Poulsen Fascinating look at hacking and cybercrime, told mostly through the life of 'Max Vision' (seriously) who while being probably a sociopath, at least tried to use his powers for good. Well, sometimes. I'm glad card security has got a lot better but it really drove home how huge cybercrime is, it's never going away. 51. The Passage by Justin Cronin I really liked this for the most part. A slightly different take on the post apocalyptic story, where you see the world as it was before and how the apocalypse part happened, and then move on to the world after. There were some really good sections, I liked the use of letters/emails to move the story on, and it kept me intrigued. Very bloated though and a bit too much going on, it was hard to keep track at points. It's the first in a trilogy but disappointingly from what I've read the second doesn't really pick up where this one left off so I'm not sure I'll read it. I still have a few books left on my challenge list - I'm working on the wildcard and 'book I've wanted to read for a while now' (The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell) but I still need to find something written by a musician, and something by the lost/beat generation. I have time off over Christmas so hopefully can get through four this month. Booklord Challenge Progress 9) Something written by a musician 14) Wildcard! 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now. 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Genneration
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Dec 5, 2016 11:13
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I was really bad about updating in that I haven't done it all. I am a bad boy. 23/26 books down which is pretty good going for me (only managed like 12 last year). Would've done much better but had a few relapses into not reading anything for a few weeks. Definitely getting better!! Some of these challenge books are probably stretching a bit but eh. I'm not reading 70 books over here. 1) Vanilla Number - 23/26 2) Something written by a woman - Texts from Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortberg (I used my other women for other questions ok) 3) Something Written by a nonwhite author - The Vegetarian by Han Kang 4) Something written in the 1800s - Three Men in a Goat by Jerome K Jerome 5) Something History Related (fictional or non-fiction your choice) - Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard 6) A book about or narrated by an animal - Firmin by Sam Savage 7) A collection of essays 8) A work of Science Fiction - The Long War by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter 9) Something written by a musician - Daft Wee Stories by Limmy (Limmy makes music sometimes) 10) Read a long book, something over 500 pages - Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 11) Read something about or set in NYC - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon 12) Read Airplane fiction (Patterson, ect) - Hitman Anders and the Meaning of it All by Jonas Jonasson (dunno if it really counts but it's light reading, fast-paced and has a thriller-ish comedy plot so w/e) 13) Read Something YA 14) Wildcard! - Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson 15) Something recently published (up to a year. The year will be the day you start this challenge) - Buttageddon by Chuck Tingle 16) That one book you’ve wanted to read for a while now. - Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse 17) The First book in a series - The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell 18) A biography or autobiography 19) Read something from the lost generation (Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, ect.) or from the Beat Genneration 20) Read a banned book - Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood 21) A Short Story collection - Three Moments of an Explosion by China Mieville 22) It’s a Mystery - The Secret History by Donna Tartt
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Dec 5, 2016 20:39
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November 60. Rogue Heroes: The History of the SAS- Ben Macintyre 61. Wolf In White Van- John Darnielle 62. Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies- Ben Macintyre. I really enjoy Macintyre's books as the perfect mix of informative and entertaining. This one especially knocks it out of the park with a nice overview of Britain's Double Cross but also delightful tidbits about slightly related weird operations, like pigeon espionage. 63. The Anatomy of Fascism- Robert O Paxton. Took me forever to read because I was taking notes and wanted to write down like every other sentence. An incredibly thorough dissection of the process of fascism. Depressingly relevant. Hit me with a Wildcard please. Hopefully a relatively short one since I put it off so long.
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Dec 6, 2016 01:02
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November: Ken Kesey - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Read this to finish off my beat generation challenge, which was my last remaining Booklord Challenge. I really liked it and enjoyed how it was from the POV of the Chief, since my only exposure to this was the film which I haven't seen in 5+ years.) Jen Kirkman - I Know What I'm Doing (This was bad. I generally don't like comedian books even though I love stand-up because it often feels like stage material adapted to sound kinda like a story, kinda. This is one of the worst offenders for that.) Harold Schechter - Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original Psycho (I bought this for four bucks in a used bookstore. It's pretty much what you'd expect, a biography of noted creep Ed Gein. He, uh, was gross? Had a belt made of nipples and a bunch of 'clothes' made out of people skin. So yeah, gross.) Booklord Challenge progress: I still have to finish one more book to hit my Goodreads challenge so I will post again after December, but I'm finished, Booklord Challenge complete.
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Dec 6, 2016 19:26
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I'm figuring out the categories for next year's booklord challenge and I think I'm mostly settled, but I figured I'd ask - is there anything that anyone especially wants to see included? Can be stuff from previous years, stuff that's not been done before but that you'd like, whatever. I have 20 settled already so probably only a couple more to include if anything good comes up.
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Dec 7, 2016 11:29
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Corrode posted:I'm figuring out the categories for next year's booklord challenge and I think I'm mostly settled, but I figured I'd ask - is there anything that anyone especially wants to see included? Can be stuff from previous years, stuff that's not been done before but that you'd like, whatever. I have 20 settled already so probably only a couple more to include if anything good comes up. Writers who think fascism was cool Out of print A book by a black african who isn't famous Something put out by a small/independent press
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Dec 7, 2016 14:22
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at least two Bob Dylan's album sleeves or a Warhammer book
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Dec 7, 2016 15:17
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A human heart posted:A homosexual European male writes very long sentences about cows for 200 pages What about a gay black African fascist? Burning Rain posted:at least two Bob Dylan's album sleeves or a Warhammer book gently caress the whole horus heresy series was already in there, now you've ruined the surprise
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Dec 7, 2016 17:28
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ebooks are technically "out of print"
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Dec 7, 2016 17:52
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Corrode posted:I'm figuring out the categories for next year's booklord challenge and I think I'm mostly settled, but I figured I'd ask - is there anything that anyone especially wants to see included? Can be stuff from previous years, stuff that's not been done before but that you'd like, whatever. I have 20 settled already so probably only a couple more to include if anything good comes up. Literally any poetry
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Dec 7, 2016 18:06
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Corrode posted:I'm figuring out the categories for next year's booklord challenge and I think I'm mostly settled, but I figured I'd ask - is there anything that anyone especially wants to see included? Can be stuff from previous years, stuff that's not been done before but that you'd like, whatever. I have 20 settled already so probably only a couple more to include if anything good comes up. I think some of the existing ones are good but maybe they could take a little more effort. Like, asking people to read one book by a woman seems sad as gently caress. How about a higher number, or a base percentage of the vanilla number, or something like that? I'd also like to see some abstract ones, here's some random throwing poo poo at the wall ones: "War" could be OK, people could read historical books or War and Peace or some dumb Star Trek war, or however they want to interpret it. "Fear" could work, interpret it as a horror category or read a nonfiction book about fear or read a book about something that scares you, etc. "Fire and Water" Maybe "something by an author who is from where you live" or "something translated from a language you don't speak" idk
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Dec 7, 2016 18:29
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a book by a goon author
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Dec 7, 2016 18:31
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I honestly kind of liked when Stravinsky was straight up like "read The Blind Owl". Although maybe do like a specific prolific author instead of just one good book? I also like more abstract, interpretive challenges since that gets people talking more about what could be covered, and keeps the thread from entirely being lists of books. The Berzerker posted:I think some of the existing ones are good but maybe they could take a little more effort. Like, asking people to read one book by a woman seems sad as gently caress. How about a higher number, or a base percentage of the vanilla number, or something like that? Yeah if you are reading more than 20 books in a year and at at least a handful aren't already by women, that's kind of hosed up. Same with nonwhite author (a specific ethnicity I can see being hard but "nonwhite" is like 80% of the planet). That also goes back to my point about discussion because of course you can pretty easily find a single book by a woman/POC just by accident but if you have to do 25% that might lead to things like "I really want to read an alt-history civil war book but are there any by women??" Also I was thinking maybe like a points based challenge that rewards combining categories (a play set in space, translated poetry about a historical event, a post-modern novel written by POC woman from your home town, etc) or doing multiple of the same challenge. Like a "pick from this list of categories to build your own unique challenge" sort of thing? Actually, this is kind of fun to think about, I might run the 2018 challenge (if I'm not super lazy instead).
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Dec 7, 2016 18:50
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Guy A. Person posted:Also I was thinking maybe like a points based challenge that rewards combining categories (a play set in space, translated poetry about a historical event, a post-modern novel written by POC woman from your home town, etc) or doing multiple of the same challenge. Like a "pick from this list of categories to build your own unique challenge" sort of thing? My preference goes against combining categories because for me the point of the challenge is to broaden people's horizons a bit and encourage them to read things they otherwise wouldn't have, and I think that's more effective if someone can't go "well, I read one book by a gay black woman, so that's that for the year and back to reading the Star Wars EU." I can see how your way would be cool though. Abstract categories are definitely something I've tried to keep in mind. I liked the colour red one Stravinsky did even if I picked the laziest possible thing for it. It's definitely a better discussion point than "do the unambiguous thing." The Berzerker posted:I think some of the existing ones are good but maybe they could take a little more effort. Like, asking people to read one book by a woman seems sad as gently caress. How about a higher number, or a base percentage of the vanilla number, or something like that? Something in translation is already in there! I like the idea of percentages - probably not too high, but more than the current one and done. Bandiet posted:Literally any poetry ugh I hate reading poetry (this is probably why it's a good idea)
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Dec 7, 2016 19:05
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Guy A. Person posted:I also like more abstract, interpretive challenges since that gets people talking more about what could be covered, and keeps the thread from entirely being lists of books. Yeah I am hoping there are more of these in general, I think they are the most interesting. Guy A. Person posted:Yeah if you are reading more than 20 books in a year and at at least a handful aren't already by women, that's kind of hosed up. Same with nonwhite author (a specific ethnicity I can see being hard but "nonwhite" is like 80% of the planet). That also goes back to my point about discussion because of course you can pretty easily find a single book by a woman/POC just by accident but if you have to do 25% that might lead to things like "I really want to read an alt-history civil war book but are there any by women??" I agree that the list thing is not interesting but it does seem like every year there are people who are like "who is a woman author who is good??" or people who don't cross off the "read literally one book by a woman" challenge until the fall, and that is weird as hell
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Dec 7, 2016 19:46
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Corrode posted:I'm figuring out the categories for next year's booklord challenge and I think I'm mostly settled, but I figured I'd ask - is there anything that anyone especially wants to see included? Can be stuff from previous years, stuff that's not been done before but that you'd like, whatever. I have 20 settled already so probably only a couple more to include if anything good comes up. How about an exclusionary category. Don't Read Young Adult Novels For A Year or something like that. Maybe this is too exclusionary and negative, but I think it's a good idea.
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Dec 7, 2016 21:28
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It's not
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Dec 7, 2016 21:55
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david crosby posted:How about an exclusionary category. Don't Read Young Adult Novels For A Year or something like that. Maybe this is too exclusionary and negative, but I think it's a good idea. It depends on the category. Some of what gets thrown in YA seems pretty arbitrary to me, and it isn't really consistent either. Oh, and I was going to suggest a holiday themed entry. Just general, so read a book about Valentines, Thanksgiving, Canadian Thanksgiving, or even Canadian Christmas. Could be a good general one to allow for a broad range of preferences within a topic. Ben Nevis fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Dec 7, 2016 |
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Dec 7, 2016 22:04
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A book by an LGTBQ author seems like a good obvious addition.
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Dec 7, 2016 22:37
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david crosby posted:How about an exclusionary category. Don't Read Young Adult Novels For A Year or something like that. Maybe this is too exclusionary and negative, but I think it's a good idea. This would be good, but it should also have genre fiction and books by living americans in it
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Dec 7, 2016 23:28
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A human heart posted:This would be good, but it should also have genre fiction and books by living americans in it Make it a choose your own category to exclude so we can exclude literature because gently caress people telling us what we can and cannot read.
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Dec 8, 2016 01:53
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the mother fuckin literature excluder......
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Dec 8, 2016 01:55
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Bandiet posted:Literally any poetry Literally all the poetry
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Dec 8, 2016 04:36
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Give people a challenge to read a short poem that was originally in a foreign language and then provide their own short translation of it.
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Dec 8, 2016 04:38
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ltr posted:Make it a choose your own category to exclude so we can exclude literature because gently caress people telling us what we can and cannot read. It's good to tell people what they shouldn't read actually.
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Dec 8, 2016 05:36
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At least one superhero comic "deconstructing" the Superman archetype
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Dec 8, 2016 06:18
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Have a category where I just tell you every book you should read.
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Dec 8, 2016 06:38
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Incredibly forced "this is relevant to the current political situation" category
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Dec 8, 2016 06:41
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CestMoi posted:Incredibly forced "this is relevant to the current political situation" category Everyone's gonna have to read The Art of the Deal.
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Dec 8, 2016 14:14
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Read a Play Read a book published the year you were born. Read a collection of poetry Read a collection of short stories Read horror.
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Dec 8, 2016 14:51
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